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This episode of The Basic Filmmaker is sponsored by:
(Halloween)
Do you want to do successful commercials?
Here's a few tips that might help.
This is going to be a really long video, so, for those with short attention spans, here's
the quick checklist for creating a commercial, and, good luck!
ONE: CLEARLY define the PURPOSE of your commercial.
TWO: CLEARLY define the AUDIENCE for your commercial.
THREE: CLEARLY define the MESSAGE of the commercial.
FOUR: CLEARLY define the COMMAND for your commercial.
FIVE: CREATE the commercial.
For everyone else, I highly suggest you continue watching.
Now, doing a good commercial that get results is not easy.
In fact, a commercial is so much harder to pull off than almost every other film or video project.
Why?
Because you're trying to do something with a commercial that videos and films are not
trying to do.
You're trying to get the person watching to DO something after they watch it.
With a commercial, the following has to occur:
One: You create it.
Two: People watch it.
Three: People agree with it.
Four: People remember it.
Five: People DO something.
Let's take these step by step.
One: You create it.
We'll cover this later, as these other steps rely on you creating it correctly in the first place.
Two: People watch it.
That sounds easy, but it's not.
First, what you actually want is the RIGHT people watch it.
So who are the RIGHT people?
The RIGHT people are those that would actually buy or use the product or service being advertised.
For example, if you've been asked to do a commercial for a lawn service company, and
the only people you reach is kids, it's a fail.
Why?
Because kids aren't the people who would sign up for the lawn service.
They don't care.
Kids are the wrong people -- the wrong audience.
The audience you want to see the commercial is the parents.
Better yet, the CLEARLY DEFINED audience you want is:
People who have lawns, that might be able to afford a lawn service, and would rather
have someone else take care of it.
Even if you create some epic commercial and a ton of people see it, it's still a fail
if -- the people who have lawns, might be able to afford a lawn service, and would rather
have someone else take care of it -- never see it or hear about it.
That's just a waste of time and money.
Now, the second part of "People watch it" also sounds easier said than done.
Unless your lawn service company has a billion dollar budget, and intends to waste it all
placing their commercial EVERYWHERE so EVERYONE can see it, here's what normally has to happen:
The commercial has to be placed somewhere so our CORRECT audience can see it, and, they
have to know where it is, and, they have to know how to get there, and, they
have to be coaxed to go there, and, they have to be enticed to watch it, and,
they have to watch it, and...
Well, there's a LOT of "AND's"!
If you create a commercial for the lawn service company, post it on YouTube or Vimeo, and
never spend the time to DRIVE the CORRECT people there to see it, then it was also a
waste of time and money.
It'll just sit there and collect digital dust.
The point is, you, or the company you created the commercial for, will have to take this
into account and know the following:
Someone will have to spend a LOT of time finding and constantly reaching out to the correct
audience, and promoting this commercial so it is viewed.
We haven't even gotten to Step three which is: People agree with it.
If some portion of the people watching our commercial don't agree that it's good in some
way, then the commercial has failed.
You see that, right?
If ten million people watch our lawn service commercial, and none of them agree that it's
a good idea, the result is, no one will sign up for the company's lawn service.
So, what was the point of making the commercial?
Which moves us to number four, "People remember it."
We'll cover this in a moment.
Now we come to step five: "People DO something."
What does that mean?
Basically, it means the person who saw the commercial reaches out in some fashion for
the item or service being promoted, and asks about it, or signs up for it, or buys it.
How do you accomplish that?
The end of your commercial has to have a command for the viewer to do something.
It's a single command or request that says what to do next.
Here's what should happen in the person's mind at the end of a successful commercial:
"Cool! I like it. I'm interested. I want that!"
And right there you command them to get it and how to get it.
You tell them to DO something: Buy it now. Sign up now. Do it now. Call this number,
email, the address, go to this website, go to this store...
OK.
Before we get into our checklist for creating a commercial, let me point out one more thing.
There is a difference between promoting something and selling something.
One is called Promotion.
The other is called Marketing.
In promotion, you're trying to promote, bring up a level, make well thought of, or, thought
of again, the product or company, in people's minds.
In marketing, you are trying to market, or sell something.
Many people don't understand or confuse the difference between these two things.
In a commercial, yes, you can promote a product, or market a product, or do both.
But you should know which one you are doing when you are doing it.
They're not the same thing.
For example, Coca-Cola, who has spent billions and billions of dollars for the last hundred
or so years, marketing their product and company, is so well known, they mainly specialize in
promotion rather than marketing.
Practically everyone on the face of the earth knows what Coca-Cola is, and where to get it.
At this point, they're mainly using promotion to reinforce the product or their company
-- Cola-Cola - into the minds of the public, over and over and over.
Our lawn service company is not in that league.
No one knows about our lawn service company, and it doesn't have millions of dollars to
burn on advertising.
So it needs to be smart about what it creates.
Our lawn service company needs two things:
It needs to become known and thought well of, and, it needs people to sign up for their
service so it doesn't go broke.
So our lawn service company will need to apply both promotion and marketing to their commercials.
Here's one way our lawn service company could do this.
They create different commercials.
The first are mostly marketing.
They say what they do, why it's a benefit, and tell the person to sign up now.
We do lawns.
You don't have to.
It saves you time.
Have a great looking lawn.
Get more time with the family.
Sign up now.
Now more commercials that lean more towards promoting the service and how great it is.
Interviews with satisfied home owners and envious neighbors.
Shots of before and after.
How great their service is.
How about an employee who just completed the lawn, notices one blade of grass sticking
up, grabs a pair of scissors and snips it.
Sign up now.
Now five more strictly promotional commercials, as we also want the company to be well thought of.
How about some training videos?
How to properly edge a lawn.
How to properly mow a lawn.
How to safely maintain your lawn mower.
All brought to you by: "The Awesome Lawn Service Company."
The last one may seem like our lawn service company is putting themselves out of business,
by showing people how to do their own lawns.
They're not.
They're establishing themselves and the Company, that they know what they are talking about.
Remember, our audience is:
"People who have lawns, might be able to afford a lawn service, and would rather have someone
else take care of it."
OK.
That's a lot of preamble, but you really need to understand the above concepts before this checklist.
Here's how I prefer to go about creating a commercial for our lawn company.
ONE: CLEARLY define the PURPOSE of the commercial.
I want the PURPOSE of the commercial defined, in one sentence, or less, SIMPLY and CLEARLY stated.
Here's some Examples:
To announce service coverage in new areas.
To show the high level of service.
To sell the service to new customers.
To get the lawn service better known.
To show how they save time, money, headaches.
To offer special deals.
Watch it on that last one, as it can *** off existing customers.
Now, if you want to try and stick all the above in one commercial, go ahead, but good luck.
You'll be spending a lot of time or money trying pack everything into a single commercial.
If you watch a lot commercials and see the guys that do this, it ends up being a bunch
of blah, blah, blah.
Stick with ONE purpose, get it agreed upon by all, and make that.
That way you'll know later whether you nailed it or not.
TWO: CLEARLY define the AUDIENCE for your commercial.
This is not EVERYONE, or ALL PEOPLE with homes.
We pretty much covered this earlier and came up with this:
People who have lawns, might be able to afford a lawn service, and would rather have someone
else take care of it.
This should be very clearly defined, or you'll miss your target.
THREE: CLEARLY define the MESSAGE of the commercial.
I can't stress enough how important the MESSAGE is.
You want a simple, single concept that the viewer should be able to understand and remember.
Let's say our lawn service company is ACME LAWNS.
Here's some examples:
ACME LAWNS has the best service.
ACME LAWNS has more customers.
ACME LAWNS has the best equipment.
ACME LAWNS is clean.
ACME LAWNS is the most affordable.
Now, here's a few tips about your message.
FIRST, never mix messages.
You want ONE message.
Think of it this way:
You took all this time and money to get in front of the potential customer.
Now, you have exactly TWO seconds to say what you want them to hear and remember.
Ready?
We at ACME LAWNS have superlative... (beep)
I'd like to show you... (beep)
Yes, when I was a kid... (beep)
Well, ah... (beep)
Get it?
Coca-Cola - Refreshing.
Walmart - Low prices.
YouTube - Videos.
Google - Search everything.
That's what you want.
Here's the second tip.
The best message is the simple one you pound into people's head over and over and over.
ACME. Beautiful Lawns!
Maybe in a later episode I'll cover another entire subject, and that is surveying your
intended audience.
This is so you know what "buttons" to "push" in your commercial.
Most large promotion and marketing firms do this, or should, before they spend the clients' money.
But for now, let's say we did that and found the one thing our potential lawn service audience
really responds to, is beautiful lawns, so we're going to go with that.
If you can't survey your intended audience, well, you're going to have to keep guessing
until you hit on something that works.
ACME. Beautiful Lawns!
Every commercial you make, keep pounding that message in:
ACME. Beautiful Lawns!
Here's the last tip about your message.
Never, ever, have a message that isn't true.
In fact, never say anything that isn't true.
It will eventually backfire on you.
If ACME LAWNS is going to say is has more customers than anyone else, it better be able
to prove it.
If it doesn't, then don't say it.
All you need is one competitor to disprove something you said, and you become a liar.
And no one listens to a liar.
OK. Here's number four on our checklist:
CLEARLY define the COMMAND for your commercial.
Decide on a SINGLE COMMAND on WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO DO, WHEN TO DO IT, AND WHERE TO GO TO DO IT.
Here's some examples:
Go to www.acmelawns.com and sign up now.
Contact us today: beautiful@acmelawns.com.
We're conveniently located on 123 Anystreet.
Come visit today.
Call now, 999-999-9999.
And yes, you'll get a real person.
Keep it simple, and give them the command to do something.
OK.
Now you've got everything all figured out?
Awesome!
Now you get to step FIVE:
CREATE the commercial.
Yeah, that's another one that sounds pretty simple, and a lot can go wrong here too.
But most of the time it's because you fudged on the previous steps, or your script or shots
or sound is bad.
But most of you probably already know this part already, so I'll just run through it high level.
All you've got to do is:
Script it.
Storyboard it.
Plan it.
Animate it, shoot it, or both.
Edit it.
Refine it.
Render it.
Get it approved.
Go back and fix what isn't working.
Re-Edit it.
Re-Refine it.
Re-Render it.
Re-Get it approved.
Re-Go back and fix what isn't working until it does.
Deliver it to the client, or post it to where it's going to be seen.
And, if you're unfortunate enough to have signed up for the rest of it, now you have
to get it promoted, passed around, watched, and talked about by the CORRECT audience.
And you keep doing that until it works.
And in the meantime, you make some more and do the whole process over again.
Even with a large budget and large staff, it takes a lot of work.
But that the basic pattern you stick to.
And here's the final catch:
If you find yourself confused and the commercial is not working and you're stuck and something
seems off, it's more than likely that one of the steps above is out or altered or too complicated.
That's where you bite your tongue, put the brakes on everything, GO BACK TO THE VERY
BEGINNING, follow on down through the steps until you find the one that's not done, brushed
off, or not CORRECT, and start everything all over from that point forward.
You have to realize that no matter what you do, you're going to spend ten times the time
trying to "fix it", than just by doing it over.
You're other option is either trash what you currently have, or finish it, realize your
mistake, and get on with the next commercial.
Hey. I told you this is not easy.
Now, I can't promise you that your video or commercial will be successful using these
steps, but hopefully, this will demystify the process of creating a commercial, and
at least it now has a chance of working.
I hope that helps, and thanks for watching.
(laughing guy) That's a wrap!
(buzzer sound)
I hope that helps, and thanks for watching.
I did that in ONE TAKE!
(sings silly "ONE TAKE" song)